PETER FELDMAN
A few words about Theatre students, from my experience as both student and instructor; I find these students largely absent from Professor Knowles's paper, except as object or as he says, "laboratory rats."
The average undergraduate Acting student, for example, is motivated by a need to have his/her emotionality validated in a society which discourages emotionality everywhere but on stage or on the playing field; and by a need to shore up an otherwise weak sense of self by role playing (exploring identity indirectly by exploring other characters). Some of the most difficult tasks the Acting teacher faces are moving this student from emoting to acting, that is, from the direct expression of a generalized wash of emotion to the direct playing of specific actions; and to move this student away from superficial masking or cartooning (a funny "character" walk and voice) to a fuller exploration of character through script analysis, observation of self and of others (realism in the sense that life is a major ingredient in the actor's raw materials, no matter how abstracted the final result may be).
Acting students tend to be a bit immature, emotionally, and need support, approval and a strengthening of their pride and self-esteem.
In a three year undergraduate programme, first year students usually are not ready to act, a second year student somewhat ready (some of them), third year students a bit more so. It's a risky experiment just putting them on stage at all. Asking them to perform in a manner for which they have not been adequately prepared (e.g., performing a Jacobean tragedy when they've never before spoken a line of verse; performing a script when all they've ever done is improvise) courts disaster. The students become demoralized and an entire production programme can flounder.
Students must learn to walk before they can fly, and it takes time. Three years is only enough time to teach some basics. We can argue about what these basics could and should be.
For many Acting teachers, the basics are Stanislavskian. I assume this is what Professor Knowles refers to in his article as "method acting." Not New York Method, which is another matter altogether, and most certainly is overtly charged with ideology. Stanislavski's system, based on his discussions with the leading actors of his time, certainly comes to us loaded with the baggage of nineteenth century romanticism and this should be pointed out to Acting students despite their lack of interest in history.
This, however, does not invalidate Stanislavski's system. For one thing what are the alternatives? There is the system derived from Laban which is based on the British middle class's insatiable predilection for classifying things and which filters feeling through one or another of only nine possible efforts. There is the approach taken by Artaud in reaction to French rhetoric and Catholicism. He never developed a pedagogy for this. It can be said that Grotowski did, though he came at it from a different angle. But Grotowski said, "I am a Stanislavskian" (!) and expected his actors to have a grounding in Stanislavski. The Living Theatre (of which I was once a member) attempted its own adaptation of Artaud (which consisted mainly of encouraging actors to "freak out" and produced a lot of ranting and reinvestigation of adolescent rage). There is the Brechtian, which I infer is the direction Professor Knowles is heading in, since his rhetoric of seeing society as changeable is identical to Brecht's. But as Eddershaw (1982) points out, in practice the differences between Brecht and Stanislavski fade; the main difference is an interruption of empathy, not its destruction. And what could be more ideologically loaded than Brecht's semi-Marxist theories? There are the various Asian systems, based on slavish imitation of previous generations of actors. There is what was called simply "technique" when I was an acting student years ago: lots of voice and speech work, based on the assumption that we should all aspire to a "perfect" sound, lots of fencing and other physical work such as how a lady or a gentleman sits or stands; and then scene study with a "tutor" who functioned as a director rather than a teacher (you simply followed his/her instructions; no opportunity for self-discovery, which I assume is what a teacher helps you to do). This approach came to us from England, where many Acting teachers today are teaching Stanislavski exercises, according to Meklar (1989). Have I left anything out?
Yes, there are idiosyncratic techniques. developed by individual teachers. In the Toronto area, Paulette Hallich teaches an approach derived from two teachers in France, based on, but not confined to, clowning. In Boston, a man is teaching an approach based on images rather than units of action. In Los Angeles, a man is teaching an approach based on psychotherapy. And so on; lots of methods from which to choose.
I probably could put together an approach based on the "emblematic" approach of The Open Theatre, a group with which I used to work. But I don't consider that appropriate for untrained undergraduates. Walk before you fly. The basics remain, for many of us, the principles and practices of Stanislavski, a teacher/practitioner with a good, late nineteenth century mind. His approach, by the way, was conceived in the context of ensemble playing, not individual, self-oriented psychologizing. Yes, we teach sense memory exercises, as Professor Knowles remarks (in fact, I'm about to publish a paper about that, in Drama Contact 19, Fall 1995). We teach these exercises because they're valuable in fostering sensitivity: we perceive the world through our five senses. We're teaching the art form.
Professor Knowles focuses mainly on the "Drama" programme which also has a practical "side." Although I question his point that the "two sides ... usually [are] functioning in real or imagined conflict," as an Acting teacher I certainly support the principle that, as Richard Hornby (1992) says, Acting should be taught in the context of the Arts and Humanities, with a strong dramatic literature/critical/historical component, as the most effective way of raising, for example, an Acting student who will ask questions, apply critical thought and historical perspective. The theatre needs such people! And it's clear that the U.S. MFA programmes (unlike Canada, MFA programmes there have become the main avenues for entering the profession) are failing in this regard, orienting themselves mainly toward performance skills for employable graduates. All of us, no matter where, how or what we teach in Acting classes, want our students to develop a personal technique which is expressive, flexible, uncluttered, at the service of the individual project. We want our students as free of ideology as possible, I hope, but we also want them to find a place for themselves, whether within or out of the theatre. We can neither predict nor program what they'll do. But we're in a crisis, a period of high unemployment and, unconscionably, we dump dozens (hundreds, if you include the U.S.) of would-be actors on the market each spring.
Those who work in the theatre, or try to, know that an education which prepares you to question all prevailing ideology is valuable but won't necessarily help put bread on the table. As Brecht said, first feeding, then philosophy. We in post-secondary programmes need to feel no shame if we play a part in helping actors to become employees of the system if the alternative is well-educated, Bolshy, unemployed actors. (On the other hand, would fully employed actors-in, say, a fully subsidized theatre with enough theatre companies to employ all the graduates of these programmes-want to rock the boat? It's doubtful.)
The Daniel Brookses and Pol Pelletiers, iconoclasts, always are exceptions. I don't think we could turn out a class full of such people if we tried. I don't really think that's the point, anyway. Getting into the habit of thinking critically, and the behaviour which then might eventuate, that's the issue.
"What must be for the undergraduate a dizzying range of very different disciplines" may not be dizzying at all. I wonder how many students (out of, say, 100) Professor Knowles would find really were dizzy from this? Perhaps many of them find these different disciplines to be complementary, especially if faculty are responsible enough to teach them that way. Dramatic Literature instructors who bring into class some knowledge of Acting theory and theatrical conventions, for example, or Directing instructors who require that their students do script analysis and even some historical research, are being responsible in establishing complementarity. Let's not underestimate our students.
The alternative to the approach to production Professor Knowles idealizes is not reproduction in the sense of museum theatre, or rather that it is not the only alternative. Granted, there is a university director out west who is famous for going to Broadway and West End shows and then reproducing them on the stage of his university theatre. But many of us who use texts from the canon, or new or recent plays, look for ways to make a fresh investigation. A fresh investigation means taking little or nothing for granted, even theatrical conventions established through years of careful historical research. (What often happens, if a responsible approach is taken, is that one discovers some of these conventions anew because they are inherent in the script. The rest drop away; they are dead forms of historical interest only.) I'd call this an exploratory rather than experimental approach.
An experimental production programme runs the risk of frequent failure (as does any form of experimentation). This can wreck student pride and demoralize the undergraduate, as I stated earlier. If this happens to the vulnerable young student it can be harmful. I suspect this idea is better suited to a graduate programme. When I taught in one, I found the students had a much stronger sense of self.
None of this should be taken as indicating a negative response to Professor Knowles's paper, which I find provocative and important. However, I'd like to close with two anecdotes (drama being an anecdotal medium).
First on the subject of exceptional and iconoclast artists:
The late U.S. theatre critic and director Harold Clurman liked to amuse his lecture audiences by declaring that the theatre "needs" mediocrity because that creates the conditions for some iconoclastic individuals to rebel and strive for excellence; moreover, how else can we recognize excellence if we don't have mediocrity with which to compare it? So, encourage mediocrity, he'd shout. (There's enough of it around anyway, I'd say.)
In this connection, it's worth pointing out that the post-adolescents we teach progress partly by emulation and partly by rebellion. In the early 1970s I taught at Dartington College of Arts in Britain. Some of us took big risks in our production work but found that our students tended to play it safe in their own projects. How can we do more to encourage experiment, we moaned. Our external assessor, the distinguished director Ronald Eyre, said, half-seriously, that we should produce nothing but Gilbert and Sullivan; then the students would rebel and do really off-the-wall work. (At least, one would hope so.) The issue here is the psychology of the 19 or 20 year old student. Should we assume that, if we pour experimentation in, experimentation will come out? Is the undergraduate theatre programme the place to try that?
WORKS CITED
Eddershaw, Margaret. "Acting Methods, Brecht and Stanislavski." Brecht in Perspective. Ed. Graham Bertram and Anthony Waine. London: Longman, 1982.
Hornby, Richard. The End of Acting: A Radical View. New York: Applause, 1992.
Meklar, Eva. Masters of the Stage. New York: Grovenor Weidenfeld, 1989.